Gefilte Manifesto: Millenial ode to Ashkenazi cooking

FROM ROSH HASHANAH FOODS  I peruse the vibrant pages of The Gefilte Manifesto (Flatiron Books, 2016), I feel right at home. Recipes from borscht to homemade pickles to kvass harken to my food soul — and some recent food encounters. Last year at this time, I reviewed The Vilna Vegetarian, a Yiddish cookbook from the early 20th century just translated into English. Soon after I interviewed Sandor Katz, a fermentation guru who waxed lyrical about Eastern European pickling traditions (IJN, Oct. 23, 2015). Half of my roots lie in Hungarian cuisine, another quarter in Polish Lithuania, so that when I traveled throughout the Baltic countries I felt an instant connection, helped along no doubt by the curd cheese familiar from my grandmotherkitchen. I have my […]